She looked at me for real and saw I was serious. She saw I knew she was for me like you know that tomorrow morning the sun will rise.
Once upon a time, I did not live in Shady Pines. Once upon a time, my name was not Alice. Once upon a time, I didn’t know how lucky I was.
Little Alice, all hollowed out, so easy to smash into a million little pieces.
And what if – what are you if the people who are supposed to love you can leave you like you’re nothing?
I wish it had never happened because then I wouldn’t think about it as I’m falling asleep.
I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t think he’d ever really notice me, and in the end, he didn’t.
What had been became what was and a story only works when you know the ending. When the people in it don’t seem like pretend. When you can think about that girl and how she was once upon a time, and see her. When you don’t already know the story is a lie.
I don’t think I could have picked a worse guy to be my soul mate.
I see what grief does, how it strips you bare, shows you all the things you don’t want to know. That loss doesn’t end, that there isn’t a moment where you are done, when you can neatly put it away and move on.
I knew I was having a panic attack. I hadn’t had one in a while, though, and I’d forgotton how they made everything like it- and I- was going to fall apart. How they reminded me of how trapped I was.
I wants us to be real. I want to be just you and me. – Ryan.
I’ve been taught that love is beautiful and kind, but it isn’t like that at all. It is beautiful, but it’s a terrible beauty, a ruthless one, and you fall-you fall, and the thing is- The thing is you want to. You don’t care what’s coming you just want who your heart beats for.
Like a heart, and I wish mine wasn’t beating.
School is just like having a job. You have to show up, you have to do your work, and you have to be around tons of idiots or mean people. Now that I think about it, it’s worse than having a job. At least there you get paid.
My name is Danielle. I’m eighteen. I’ve been stealing things for as long as I can remember.
I heard how people sounded when their dreams were shattered, when their lives were turned into a waking nightmare.
It could be enough, maybe, or at least a start, but the problem is that at night I tumble into dreams that aren’t dreams at all. I tumble into memories and wake up aching for a dying world and a quiet, cold life that offered me nothing but sitting in a still room.
And yet here I am. Broken and bleeding on the inside, heartsick, I am here.
Whatever happened to me just now has gotten to me, broken past the fragile shell I’ve built. More than my memory is gone. My soul has wings that beat to a heart I don’t understand and I see things, feel things that I know aren’t from here, but that are so real.
He is nothing to look at, and yet I can’t stop looking at him. There is something beautiful in how his face is made, how all the tiny flaws blend together into something more perfect than perfection could ever be.